


In This Sweeping Infinity

by Evitcani



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Bittersweet, Canon Compliant, Character Study, Episode 63 spoilers, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-19
Updated: 2017-05-19
Packaged: 2018-11-02 10:18:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 359
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10942470
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Evitcani/pseuds/Evitcani
Summary: "Are we friends?"Three words that stopped him. He couldn’t say ‘No, of course not.’Major Episode 63 spoilers.





	In This Sweeping Infinity

“Are we friends?” 

Three words that stopped him. He couldn’t say ‘ _No, of course not_.’ There were few things that came to eclipse the grand scheme of things. 

“I saw the fullness of time. I pondered eternity and was the first person, and only person, to successfully visualize its treacherous arc.”

Yet, he had not said ‘ _No_.’ 

“But eternally, Merle, eternally? You can’t possibly conceive of the length of eternity, Merle, I have. It’s maddening and _hopeless_ , but it’s this burden we’re all saddled with from the moment of our creation.”

Love, after all, was an aspect of that horror of life. It was a smaller cycle in the great wheel that churned towards nothing. 

“It’s a finish line that, by its definition, will never arrive. It stretches forever and ever. It’s too ambivalent to even taunt those trapped behind it.”

Perhaps, he had told Merle they couldn’t be friends to convince himself. It was an argument decades old that came from every time he caught himself looking forward to something else. Every time he looked beyond what he had become and saw something else. When he saw something else and could feel the parts of himself that weren’t _them_ , but himself. _Jon_. 

“It is the cruel price of existence, Merle, and it is too _horrible_ to bear once you’ve seen it. Existence, Merle, life, Merle? Is horrible. To exist, to live, is _horrible_.”

In all his years, no one had heard him and rejected his answer to the cosmos. No one had said that he could love someone. 

No one had offered him friendship and then taken it away. 

Love, an investment in shared happiness, the recipe for friendship. He looked forward to laughing and two glasses of water. 

No, Merle had not taken away his friendship.

“Huh. I feel _sad_.”

Jon remembered an old saying as he held up his hand and watched Merle turn to ash, “ _If you love them, let them go. If they come back, it was meant to be._ ”

There was something in the great sweeping infinity waiting for him. No, not something, _someone_. A friend. 

That was something to hope for.

 

 

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**Author's Note:**

> Feel free to follow my [Tumblr](https://evitcani-writes.tumblr.com/) or [Twitter](https://twitter.com/Evit_cani).


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